"Significant gap" found between US HDTV ownership and HD programming usage

Research firm In-Stat is back with updated numbers on the amount of HDTV owners / HD programming consumers there are in the US, and needless to say, there's still quite the gap. The most recent report points out that the "number of US HDTV households, defined as households having both an installed HD-capable TV set and also receiving and watching HD programming, increased by almost 40% in 2008." That said, the growth rate could have been much, much larger. In America, there are over 39 million homes with an installed HDTV, yet just 22 million of those are tuning into HD programming. From a worldwide perspective, we are glad to see that HDTV households rose from 29 million at year-end 2007 to 36 million at year-end 2008, though In-Stat does note that it'll likely be 2011 before Europe hits the magical 10 million mark in HDTV households. Per usual, even more figures are waiting in the read link.